Chapter 27: Constructing and Understanding Anime-Style Aesthetics

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[Genichiro Onizuka, LP 0]

The final attack concluded, sweeping away his remaining Life Points. In the Shadow Duel he had initiated, this also signaled the true end of his life as a duelist.

At this moment, he couldn't even feel the pain brought on by the Shadow Duel's impact. He had already begun to lose all sensation in his physical body.

Just moments ago, he had boasted that being caught by him was the greatest misfortune of his opponent's life. Now, looking at it, whose misfortune was it, really?

This boy was strong, but he felt different from any other powerhouse he had encountered before. How should he put it? It was as if... as if the duel, in his eyes, was understood in a way completely different from how everyone else saw it.

This was the first time in Genichiro's life that, after a duel, such a thought emerged:
—Dueling is truly difficult...

Defeated, Genichiro collapsed to the ground. A layer of golden light enveloped his body, which then shattered into particles of light and vanished. It was just like those who perished after losing a duel in the GX dimension-hopping arc.

You Xuan gasped. Good grief, Shadow Duels really are dangerous. To have your literal ashes scattered after losing is just too terrifying...

It was fortunate he had the upper hand.

However, in his eyes, this guy's level of "K-language" (card text interpretation) didn't even reach the beginner level. How could such a scrub be a Shadow Duelist? It was a miracle he had survived this long playing life-or-death cards...

No, that wasn't right. You Xuan realized he was still stuck in the inertia of his past life's mindset. He couldn't think that way. In this world, a duelist's strength relied more on the "heart of the cards" (divine draws), while interpreting card text was perhaps just an embellishment.

Yes, it was indeed a dangerous world; he couldn't afford to let his guard down for even a second. He needed to collect more powerful cards; improving his strength was the only true path.

Take the present, for example.

You Xuan walked forward, leaned down, and picked up the Duel Disk dropped by the now-deceased Genichiro. Since the man was gone, his deck had naturally become ownerless property.

You Xuan said solemnly, "It was a good duel. Rest in peace, buddy. I shall inherit your deck and your will."

With that, he stuffed the deck into his pocket. As he walked away, he felt a chill down his spine, as if a ghostly wind had blown past.

...
...

Early the next morning.

Sunlight trickled through the gaps in the curtains onto the room's floor. You Xuan groggily opened his heavy eyelids, his blurry vision struggling to focus.

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He seemed to see... a girl?

Her silver hair floated in the air, one hand holding a staff, the other covering her mouth. Her spirit form had partially phased through his body as he lay in bed. She was wide-eyed, peeking out stealthily, as if observing him.

However, the moment he opened his eyes, an exclamation mark seemed to appear over the girl's head. She vanished instantly, diving back into the deck within the Duel Disk leaning against the table, and went silent.

You Xuan: "..."

After the previous night's ordeal and the duo's first collaboration, You Xuan understood that the Silent Magician wasn't intentionally targeting him or refusing to acknowledge him as her master; she was simply "silent." In other words, she was socially withdrawn.

Well, as the saying goes, like master, like servant; it seemed reasonable that the spirit of a "shut-in" player would also be a shut-in.

Regardless, she had indeed been helpful in last night's skirmish. Truly, in the Yu-Gi-Oh! world, going out without divine artifacts or a spirit companion was just too dangerous.

Furthermore, he wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but he felt that during the life-or-death duel last night, with the Silent Magician in his deck, something was different compared to previous duels.

It was a feeling hard to describe clearly. It was as if, when touching his deck, he could faintly sense a certain rhythm every time he drew a card. Before this, his deck was like his Duel Disk—merely a tool for dueling. But during that match, it was his first time having the illusion that "the deck had come alive."

Of course, this feeling was quite metaphysical, and he couldn't rule out the possibility that he was overthinking it.

"In any case, I must become stronger..."

The sudden encounter with a life-or-death duel made You Xuan realize once again the importance of playing well in this world; it was more reliable than walking around with an arsenal of weapons.

As he reviewed his recent string of battles, he gained some new insights.

From the perspective of a card player, one often marvels at the decks of many anime characters: how do they even make such systems function? But if you base it on the strength of certain "protagonists" who "never brick their hands regardless of the system," and then examine their decks, you notice a common characteristic.

That is, they are stuffed with... things that make no sense... (strike that).
That is, they have solutions in their decks for almost any situation.

In reality, decks generally pursue stability and efficiency, yet even top-tier meta decks occasionally encounter situations where "the entire deck cannot find an answer." Facing a certain field or a specific scenario, one knows clearly that no matter which card they pick from their deck, they cannot break that board.

Such situations might be rare, and even if they happen, one just surrenders, which doesn't affect the status of a meta deck. But in this world, it’s different.

Shadow Duels are one-off affairs—win and you live, lose and you die. There are no second chances. Therefore, some decks that look like they are filled with "meaningless" cards are actually built around the philosophy of "having no board that cannot be broken."

Similarly, in reality, deck building usually strives for a forty-card limit, as streamlining is necessary to minimize bricking and maximize efficiency. But in this world, sixty cards is the norm... no, it seems the deck limit in this world might even exceed sixty.

Because more cards represent more possibilities.

But all of this is predicated on the foundation of "never bricking."

Thus, only top-tier duelists have the ability to command such systems, even mixing four or five completely different archetypes into one deck like Yugi or Kaiba, yet playing without ever bricking—giving the impression that they are dueling with four or five independent decks simultaneously. And when there is truly no other way, drawing a card that wasn't even in the deck to begin with is not entirely impossible...

However, ordinary people without that level of skill who blindly imitate these top masters—everyone starting with sixty-card piles—naturally become worse and worse, bricking more often. This created the bizarre environment where the polarization between experts and the bottom-dwellers grew increasingly severe.

You Xuan felt he had reached another epiphany.

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While "cheap" (troll/stall) tactics are powerful, they won't carry you far in this world on their own. For his current level of opponents, his build was sufficient, but in the future, he would have to expand into more versatile styles and tactics based on this foundation.

Deck building is important, and the bond of divine draws is also important. One must grasp both, and both must be solid.

Playing these recent matches, aside from realizing that the card environment in the anime was different, he also discovered that many other things were not as he remembered.

When watching the anime before, he didn't think much of it, but now that he had personally entered the world to play, he realized that, just as in the animation, the duelists here don't proactively give you a chance to chain after an effect is activated.

According to the rules he was familiar with in his past life, you would often need to give the opponent time after activating an effect, asking if they have a chain. Only after all cards in a chain were activated would they be resolved in order. Unless the opponent says "no response" or "go ahead," you could only then happily continue your combo.

But here, that didn't exist. Whether in the anime or with the duelists You Xuan had encountered personally, they would immediately start resolving effects on their own without the slightest awareness of chain timing.

However, he soon discovered that this didn't matter much because the rules for chain timing in a duel weren't that strict. Even if the opponent started resolving the current card's effect on their own, it wouldn't cause you to lose your timing to chain; you could still interrupt their operation and follow up with your own effect.

This was only natural. Otherwise, it would just become a matter of whoever could talk faster, effectively blocking the opponent from playing.

Moreover, this wasn't due to incomplete rules in the early anime; even in later series that followed real-life card rules, it remained the same. From an animation production perspective, one could only speculate that the production team decided that dramatic effect was more important than strictly following rules. If everyone strictly followed the rules to activate all cards and resolve them one by one, it might affect the dramatic impact of certain plot twists.

While it is non-compliant from a realistic perspective, it was generally just a visual effect in the anime and rarely affected the outcome of the situation.

Last night, You Xuan discovered that playing cards is truly physical labor. The P.E. teacher at Duel Academy even emphasized that you couldn't play well without a healthy body. You Xuan had found it funny at the time, but now he was beginning to understand the meaning.

Especially after that life-or-death duel last night, which was mentally and physically draining. He hadn't felt it while playing, but upon returning, he felt completely hollowed out, wanting nothing more than to collapse and sleep. Waking up, he finally felt refreshed, his brain back online and restored to work.

His harvest from winning that match was not small. Genichiro, after all, was a Shadow Duelist who lived on the edge; his deck looked quite valuable. You Xuan estimated that even if he couldn't use some of the cards, they could fetch a good price on the market, which he could sell to get the cards he actually wanted.

And most importantly, there was the anime-effect version of "Pot of Greed" (or rather, the "Card of Sanctity/Death").

An artifact that instantly draws up to five cards, with a hilarious drawback that only requires "discarding the hand after five turns"—like a blatant taunt to the opponent—making things like "Pot of Greed" look like trash. It was a pity there was only one. You Xuan even thought it would be wonderful if he could run three of these...

Additionally, he was fascinated by the other two of the "Three Great Treasures" from the DM era, along with the "Pot of Death": the "Pot of Destiny" and the "Card of Sanctity."

The "Pot of Destiny" belonged to Joey—basically rolling a die and drawing that many cards, then banishing an equal number from the top of the deck. It was also a broken card, but he hadn't seen anyone use it besides Joey in the anime, and by the GX era, it had vanished.

The "Card of Sanctity" belonged to Yugi, allowing both players to draw until they had six cards in hand—a god-tier killing tool. This one was used by many others besides Yugi in DM and was considered a generic card, even appearing in the GX era. However, You Xuan hadn't seen it on the market yet.

The Three Great Treasures of DM—he wanted them all...

And now, the greatest hope was the broad road known as "Duel Academy."

Rumor had it that once you entered the academy, you would see a completely different world. A vast amount of rare cards that ordinary duelists couldn't even imagine, and an internal procurement channel that supposedly had "everything"...

It was already right before his eyes.

Three days from now, at the Kaiba Land, the annual Duel Academy entrance examination would be held.

He would definitely secure a spot.